Cindy McCain's Memory Lapse

I just saw that Cindy McCain has accused Obama of waging "the dirtiest campaign in American history". This stunning comment comes out of the mouth of the woman whose husband had his campaign decimated in 2000 by vicious mud-slinging from the Bush campaign prior to the primary. In that year, McCain was referred to as a coward who collaborated with the Vietnamese, a weak-minded fool driven insane by his years as a P.O.W., a "gay sympathizer" (which I guess is bad if you're a Republican), an unstable person with a violent temper who couldn't be trusted with the control of nuclear weapons, and the father of an illegitimate black child by a prostitute.

Compared to those smears, Obama's referral to McCain as "erratic" seems really mild. And the recent discussion of McCain's role in the Keating 5 scandal by Obama's campaign isn't a smear because, well, it's the truth. John McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee for his role in the scandal, and McCain himself referred to his involvement as "the worst mistake of my life".

Cindy's apparent memory lapse suggests a couple of possibilities. Maybe her stroke has left her with long-term memory loss, and she no longer recalls anything from the years prior to 2001. Her history of drug addiction also brings up the possibility that she was, um, high throughout her husband's 2000 bid. That would definitely have made 2000 seem like a pretty good year.